The Evolution and Significance of the Cuban Revolution

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

   PDF

2. The Global and Historical Context

   • Charles McKelvey

   Pages 1-25

3. The Cuban Anti-colonial Revolution

   • Charles McKelvey

   Pages 27-41

4. The Failure of the Cuban Neocolonial Republic

   • Charles McKelvey

   Pages 43-75

5. The Taking of Power by the People

   • Charles McKelvey

   Pages 77-111

6. The Cuban Revolutionary Project

   • Charles McKelvey

   Pages 113-144

7. The Structural Crisis of the Neocolonial World-System

   • Charles McKelvey

   Pages 145-178

8. The Third World Project of National and Social Liberation

   • Charles McKelvey

   Pages 179-208

9. Socialism for the Twenty-First Century

   • Charles McKelvey

   Pages 209-231

10. Renewing the Historic Quest for Socialism

    • Charles McKelvey

    Pages 233-249

11. Back Matter

    Pages 251-277

    PDF

The book interprets the Cuban revolutionary movement from 1868 to 1959 as a continuous process that sought political independence and social and economic transformation of colonial and neocolonial structures. Cuba is a symbol of hope for the Third World. The Cuban Revolution took power from a national elite subordinate to foreign capital, and placed it in the hands of the people; and it subsequently developed alternative structures of popular democracy that have functioned to keep delegates of the people in power.  While Cuba has persisted, the peoples of the Third World, knocked down by the neoliberal project, have found social movement and political life, a renewal that is especially evident in Latin America and the Non-Aligned Movement. At the same time, the capitalist world-economy increasingly reveals its unsustainability, and the global elite demonstrate its incapacity to respond to a multifaceted and sustained global crisis.  These dynamics establish conditions for popular democratic socialist revolutions in the North.

• Cuba
• cuban revolution
• National liberation
• Third world project
• Social transformation
• imperialism
• neocolonialism
• CELAC
• BRICS
• Non-Aligned Movement
• latin american politics

“This work reflects years of enormous interdisciplinary investigative work as well as constant perseverance in sharing with Cuba’s sons and daughters their eternal joys and perennial difficulties.  With a notable personal stamp, the author formulates his own epistemological method with respect to the relation between the horizons of the global North and global South.  Analyzing the world-system from the perspective of Wallerstein, he offers his own reflections on how to construct a socialist system in the North. The dissemination of the book is indispensable for the knowledge and general education of present and future generations.” (Gladys Hernández Pedraza, Researcher, Center for Research on the World Economy, Cuba)

• Professor Emeritus, Presbyterian College, Clinton, USA

  Charles McKelvey

​Charles McKelvey is Professor Emeritus at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, USA. He currently lives in Havana, where he actively participates in Cuban intellectual life.

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